How does it feel being a role model?

That’s a tricky one. You’ve got to get the right balance I think. You can’t live your life thinking about how it’s going to affect everybody else. You’ve got to have your own life and do what you want to do, but it is something I take into consideration and I wouldn’t want to fall around drunk or anything.

What’s it like working with Matt [Smith]?

Matt is so focused he really inspires me. That sounds really cheesy, but it’s true. I’ve never met someone so focused and he never slacks off. He’s really driven. And his approach to acting is really creative. Rather than just reeling off the lines, he changes it every time. It’s an intense day. He takes it very seriously, but that’s not to say it’s not fun. In fact, part of our taking it seriously is messing around between takes, because I feel like it’s us staying in character and being silly.

Well, the base line of Doctor Who is a man who lives in a telephone box and saves the universe in a bow tie. So you have to go some to up that. And if you’re going to do a Christmas Day episode, which is basically the principle that the audience have had a selection box for breakfast and are probably drunk, then you actually have to sort of move it on a bit. Because, actually, a normal episode of Doctor Who wouldn’t be enough at that point.

I think you have to be emotional. I think you have to go on the whole journey, don’t you? You have to laugh and cry a bit. A Christmas Carol, oddly enough, the original, is sort of the whole package. It’s A Wonderful Life, which is kind of in a way a variant of A Christmas Carol, is the same. Yes, I think you should be…as I say, you’re full of sugar and alcohol, you’re going to be tripped off into any place at any time.

I have to say all I was struck by was…it never seemed for a moment that you hadn’t acted before. You were completely well prepared. Because on the one hand, you’ve got Katherine being very diligent and accessing real emotion and really getting in there. Then me and Michael (Gambon) just sort of dossing down. And so I was utterly impressed and she was thoroughly prepared and I’m convinced that she’ll go on and do other parts.

He’s 28, the golden boy.

Has been, all his life. Harvard education, fast-tracker in the C.I.A., destined for success. Though he’s never taken it easy – Rex hustles, seduces and campaigns to get where he is today. He can talk his way into anything, then charm his way out, fast. He’s made a lot of enemies, but his friends and lovers would defend him to death. His choice of career is significant. Someone like Rex could make a fortune in Wall Street, or Hollywood. But choosing the C.I.A. says a lot about him: that for all his swagger, he does believe in justice. And will fight for it.

Slowly but surely, we see him make friends. He’s thrown together a bunch of people known as Torchwood, the only people who might have the answer to a global mystery. To Rex, at first, they’re a bunch of freaks. Welsh women and World War 2 Captains, what’s that about?! But as they race from one crisis to another, dodging assassins, blackmail, corruption and conspiracy, from Washington to Wales and the slums of Shanghai, Rex forges friendships in the heat of fire. He learns to trust his new colleagues. And they realize that this dangerous, dazzling, reckless man is the best friend they could ever have, in a world going to hell.
They frighten us, men like Rex. We wish we were him; we never will be.